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PRAYER AND PATIENCE

Two ways exist of searching for the truth. One way is that of the male – aggression, violence, the scramble for power. Another is that of the female – surrender, withdrawal. Science is the male path, aggressive; religion is a female path, bowing down, submissive. Make this distinction very clearly.

All scriptures of the East begin with a salutation to God. This salutation is not just a formality; it is not merely following a tradition or a convention. The salutation is indicative of the fact that the path ahead is of surrender. Only the humble will attain. Those who are aggressive and full of ego, those who wish to attain even truth by grabbing at it, those with the attitude of conquering nature will be defeated. They can possess the trivial, but that which is so immense, so vast, can never be theirs. They may succeed in grabbing the worthless, but nothing meaningful can ever become part of them.

Hence, a scientist discovers all that is unessential, but misses the essential. He succeeds in gathering details about the soil, the stones, matter, but an understanding of the soul and God

escapes him. It is like one attacks a woman passing by. One may become successful in raping her, one may even have her body in one’s control, but one can never have her soul; one will never be able to win her love.

So those who approach God aggressively are the rapists. They may bring the physical body of God under their control; they may dissect and analyze nature manifesting all around, they may discover some of its secrets, but the discovery will be as trivial as someone attacking and raping a woman. The man may succeed in securing the woman’s body, but such an achievement is not worth a straw because he won’t be able to even touch her soul. And if the soul has remained untouched, the possibility of love that is hidden within her, the hidden seed of her love can never sprout. Her love can never shower upon him.

Science is an act of rape. It is an assault on nature – as if nature were some kind of an enemy, as if it has to be conquered, defeated. That’s why science believes in cutting things into pieces. Analysis, destruction; it believes in dissection.

If you were to tell a scientist, ”The ﬂower is beautiful,” he will immediately sit down and start pulling apart the ﬂower, dissecting it, analyzing it. He has no idea that in the very tearing of it into pieces, the beauty of the ﬂower disappears. The ﬂower looked beautiful in its wholeness, but when divided into parts, it lost its beauty. Of course, in doing the analysis the scientist can ﬁnd out the chemical elements contained in the ﬂower; he may show the substance, the minerals the ﬂower is made of. He may place them in different bottles and label them accordingly. But he won’t be able to say, ”Here is a bottle which contains the beauty once present in the ﬂower,” because the beauty will have disappeared already. By making an assault on the ﬂower, you will only come upon its body, not the soul.

This is the reason why science doesn’t believe in the soul – how can it? Even after making so much effort, not even a glimpse of the soul becomes available to science – it never can… not because there is no soul, but because the scientist has chosen a wrong method. The method he uses is not the way to discover the soul. The very means applied to its discovery is the means good for ﬁnding the trivial. That which is of great value cannot be attained through aggression.

You will be able to ﬁnd the mystery of life only if you enter through the door of surrender. If you bow down, if you pray, you will be able to reach the center of love. Courting God is almost as good as courting a woman. One needs to approach Him with a heart full of love, gratitude and humility. And there is no hurry! Any haste on your part, and you miss. A great deal of patience is required. Your haste… and His heart will be closed. Even rushing things is an act of aggression.

Hence those who set out in search of God, their life-style is contained in two words: prayer and patience. So the scriptures begin with prayer and they end with awaiting. The search therefore, begins with the prayer.